Communications today
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Recently, I was asked to attend a school careers day. The perimeter of the school hall was filled with representatives from all sorts of career paths; from the police and ambulance services to the media, business, financial and travel industries. This particular careers day was aimed at primary school children - far younger than I was when I was encouraged to begin thinking about a career. Nonetheless, the process was largely the same. Students ambled from stall to stall in a manner that I remember so well from my school days. No matter how career minded one might be as a teenager (or a ten year old), the thought of ‘doing a job’ is an entirely foreign concept when we are young. Some of us move into a career path and stick at it for our entire working lives. Others move from job to job, with the sole aim of paying the bills. The rest of us learn and adapt as we go.
The truth of the matter is that we all develop gradually, at different rates, and often find our niche unexpectedly. As a twenty one year old looking ahead ten years I imagined that I would be working in politics or perhaps the conservation sector or the broader environmental sector, or perhaps still in teaching. The reality has been one of broad experience and collecting skills as I have moved through life. It has been a joy to become embedded in rural conversations and in communications at a time when there is so much technological opportunity. I have spent the last few years telling stories about incredible people in the countryside and with each project I have realised the benefits in telling these stories, whether that is in a stark business format for the client or in a therapeutic manner. It feels a little early to be reflecting of the year past and the year to come but I have never been a great believer in new years’ resolutions. One should be able to make resolutions and reflect at any time of the year. Nonetheless, I look forward to 2020 with anticipation. Who will I meet over the next 12 months? What projects will I be involved with? With a specialism in rural affairs and the countryside I imagine that I will be telling more rural stories than urban, but the listeners to those stories might come from anywhere. Interest in the countryside, in the environment, in food and farming seems to be growing. The way we tell stories is also vibrant and diverse and opportunities to connect with each other are vast. This is the joy and opportunity of communications today and it is also the challenge that I have come to relish.